Click on the logo above
to visit the website for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schuyler County

Guest
Column: State Sen. Tom O'Mara

"Connecting the last mile"

ALBANY, Nov. 28 -- New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman, who devotes a great deal of his work to reporting on the emerging
global economy and American’s place in it, recently wrote: “There
is a concept in telecommunications called ‘the last mile,’
that part of any phone system that is the most difficult to connect –
the part that goes from the main lines into people’s homes.”

Friedman
references this telecommunications concept as an entryway into a column
on the efforts of an elite technology school in India to connect “the
last person” to the basic tools of the worldwide Web.

I’ll utilize both of these ideas, in turn, to again highlight
one of the key challenges still facing New York State at the start of
the second decade of the 21st century. It’s a challenge prominently
featured, for example, in the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development
Council’s recently released strategic plan for the future of our
local economy: “Twenty-first century growth is unquestionably dependent
on the flow of digital information over uninterrupted high-bandwidth channels…While
broadband access is developing in the Southern Tier, geographic pockets
exist where high-speed Internet, wireless and wireline coverage lag behind
the state average. This is particularly true in the region’s most
rural communities, where economic development is most sluggish. The primary
challenge in developing ubiquitous broadband access is securing the funding
to expand infrastructure into the most rural regions, and assuring that
the cost of access remains affordable to emerging businesses and residents.”

The Finger Lakes Regional Council also addresses the need for broadband
development in its plan. Both plans can be viewed on my website, www.omara.nysenate.gov
(click on the “Open for Business” icon).

New York State’s overall broadband development efforts are coordinated
by the Broadband Development and Deployment Council [http://www.cio.ny.gov/].
Upon releasing its 2010 annual report last May, the council’s chair
said, “While New York has leveraged public/private
investments to close the digital divide statewide, more still needs to
be done. In the coming year we will continue to work with partners to
ensure every New Yorker has access to affordable high-speed Internet and
the associated economic, social and cultural opportunities that broadband
can provide.”

Again that goal of connecting the last mile, the last person, every
New Yorker. It’s an investment and a goal whose time has clearly
arrived. Earlier this year, the Southern Tier Central Regional Planning
and Development Board’s (STC), in partnership with a $10-million
investment from Corning Incorporated, announced a $12.2-million project
to construct an optical fiber broadband network across Chemung, Schuyler
and Steuben counties and dramatically expand regional access to high-speed
Internet service.

Efforts like these are going to make all the difference, and local,
state and federal leaders must find any and every way to encourage and
invest in them. Because as the Southern Tier Regional Council noted, there
are still too many “last miles” remaining unserved or underserved
across upstate New York.

In fact, the Legislature’s joint, bipartisan Rural Resources Commission,
on which I serve as a member, has estimated that at least 750,000 rural
New Yorkers do not have high-speed Internet access. That’s unacceptable.

As a state (as well as a nation), we’re facing unprecedented short-
and long-term challenges. But if there’s one widespread agreement
emerging on what the response needs to be, it’s that government
leaders can’t dismantle the foundations of economic strength. There’s
an undeniable case being made – and it’s echoed across every
level of government -- that the No. 1 key to the future is an economy
that’s producing good, private-sector jobs and providing long-term
economic security and stability.

In the 21st century economy, this means closing the “digital divide.”
Providing New Yorkers with equal access to high-speed Internet is critical.
High-speed Internet has become fundamental to economic and educational
success. It’s one foundation for bringing the excitement and prosperity
of a high-tech future to upstate, rural New York. Once again, we should
settle for nothing less than being the national leader in this regard,
which means there’s work to do. Getting it done will require a level
of public-private creativity, innovation and commitment that can help
us stand apart in a fierce, global competition for jobs and economic opportunities
– especially the high-tech opportunities of this new economy.